NEW YORK — So Joe Girardi is sticking with Derek Jeter in the No. 2 spot, still convinced the captain will summon his better angels in September. Just as well: the Yankees, who got crushed by the Red Sox on Tuesday, are going nowhere, which is why it’s pointless for the front office to pick a fight with Jeter on his way out the door.

Those were the two take-aways from an awful night in the Bronx. The first was Girardi’s decision to take a bullet for Jeter, insisting no one else is qualified to bat second. The manager knows better, of course. So does any discerning Yankee fan who loves the energy in Martin Prado’s bat. But when nostalgia trumps qualitative analysis, you’re forced to listen to Girardi saying Jeter is being “picked on” by those who have the temerity to say the shortstop has been hurting the team.

But, like we said, Girardi is no dummy. He watched his Yankees get flattened by Boston, 9-4, and realized – if he hadn’t already – that the playoff hunt is all but over. The Bombers didn’t just suffer a setback in the standings, they mailed it in against a last-place Red Sox team that’s already packed for pitchers and catchers next February.

There were culprits everywhere, embarrassing performance on both sides of the ball. Shane Greene, who was unbeaten in his last six starts, was lit up for six runs in 2ª innings – an ambush so sudden and so severe, the Stadium crowd couldn’t even muster up the energy to boo him. Instead, Greene walked off to the sound of uncomfortable murmuring in the stands, the sound of a fan base yearning for football.

The Red Sox, after all, are the American League’s worst-hitting team, losers of 11 of 15 before Tuesday. Their roster is so full of holes, they’re being treated as the pennant race’s 98-pound weaklings. The contenders are using the Sox like calisthenics, warming up for the more important series later in September. That’s baseball’s version of Darwin’s law: the weak are historically consumed after Labor Day, which is why the Yankees so desperately needed a sweep, before the Royals show up this weekend.

But Greene, who never found those knee-high strikes, was down 2-0 in the first inning and gave up four more runs in the third inning, including home runs to Daniel Nava and Xander Bogaerts. It was Bogaerts’ homer that compelled Girardi to finally rescue Greene and allow the rest of the night to play out as a glorified exhibition game.

Girardi had nothing new to say, other than repeating the usual phraseology of “the importance of these games.” The manager sounded empty, broken. Time and again the Yankees themselves looked like they’d given up on the idea of October.

Prado smacked a line drive off the wall in the fifth inning with runners on first and second – and got himself tagged out in a rundown. Prado rounded first and headed for second, never noticing that Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann had each advanced only one base. Prado ended up tweaking a hamstring on the play, which took the edge off what could’ve been a huge inning.

The Bombers did end up scoring two runs, but their “rally” was nothing more than a bases-loaded walk to Francisco Cervelli and Jeter’s subsequent infield single with the bases still jammed. Give the captain credit – he busted it down the first base line on a slow roller to short and beat Bogaerts’ throw by a millisecond.

Even though it was close enough to warrant an appeal by the Yankees, Jeter did, technically, come through in a big spot. But make no mistake: it wasn’t a particularly memorable night for a future Hall of Famer.

Including that RBI roller, Jeter hit three soft ground balls before flying out harmlessly in the eighth. There was no sign of those better angels returning to save the Yankees, or Girardi, for that matter. We’ve said it before: if Bombers have any remaining chance of securing a wild card, they’ll need more production from Jeter and Mark Teixeira, and it’s going to require a re-working of the lineup.

But Girardi won’t budge; demoting Jeter is not open to negotiation. He told reporters before the game that the shortstop stays in the No. 2 spot because. “I consider us to be in playoff mode and through [Jeter’s] career he’s been clutch.”

Surely Girardi knows he’s asking more of Jeter than he can give right now. The shortstop might have one more hot streak in him, but the odds are that September will end on a subdued note, both for Jeter and the Yankees. To be fair, it’s not only Jeter’s at-bats that have disappeared in a black hole, and Girardi is right when he says, “We have other issues in our lineup.” Teixeira, in particular, is killing the Bombers. As a cleanup hitter, on a scale of 1-10, he’s become a negative value.

But this is the month the Yankees have to choose between celebrating Jeter’s legendary career and a desperate run for the wild card. It looks like Girardi is picking Door No. 1, which, after another punishing loss, might turn out to be his only option.